RIP, David Foster Wallace

[retsuko]

David Foster Wallace found dead in his home, an apparent suicide

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again contains one of my favorite essays of all time: Wallace's account of a taking a Caribbean cruise and all the crazy he encounters on board. The prose is tight, but never dense or dry. His use of footnotes is utterly unrestrained; his footnotes have footnotes. Wallace is one of my literary idols in terms of seeing the interesting/funny/crazy in everyday life. I am sad that he will no longer be around to write books that made me laugh and then nagged at me for days, making me think carefully and seriously what he was really trying to get at with the humor.

Comments

[lyras.livejournal.com]

It's so sad to hear this news, and I feel especially awful for his wife, who had to find him like that. I'd never read anything by him until yesteday when people started linking to his articles, but was electrified by his exuberant wordsmithery.

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

I know. It pained me to think about that discovery on her part, and the realization of how in need of help he must have been to do something like that. :(

Try to get ahold of "Supposedly Fun Thing". I like his nonfiction better than his fiction, personally, and the essays in that book are just so entertaining. It's like sitting down with an exceedingly witty friend over good drinks and food.